Two Anniversary Flowers

As I was rain-walking up a soggy fell-slope a few days ago I came across one of the little benches built along the path for a sit-down. On this bench was a fresh bouquet of flowers—roses and day lillies in a festive wrapper. Just sitting there, thank you very much, minding their own business with no one else in sight. I said, “Thanks, Lord, for the anniversary flowers. You like our 29 years together too?” He smiled, as I saw him in my heart’s eye.

A little further along the path I ran into a solitary man coming down from the top of the fell. I could barely make him out in the wind and rain, and deepening shade of the afternoon. We stopped and chatted as we passed. He said, “You taking those flowers to the cairn at the top to mark some memory?” I said, “no, just a gift to me that I was going to pass along to my bride.” He said, “Oh, I just came from marking my dad’s death 20 year ago today; he loved this fell.”

I asked his father’s name. It was David. I told him, “I’ll leave a flower at the top for him to mark the memory for you.” It was a little blessing to be shared along the path. The wind was howling at the top so the flowers got anchored with a stone. Death adding a period at the end of our sentence, and clarifying the words in between. So, Lord, let me so live my life from the vantage point of Deathbed-View, as John Donohue exhorts:

For Death

From the moment you were born,

Your death has walked beside you.

Though it seldom shows its face,

You still feel its empty touch

When fear invades your life,

Or what you love is lost

Or inner damage is incurred.

Yet when destiny draws you

Into these spaces of poverty,

And your heart stays generous

Until some door opens into the light,

You are quietly befriending your death;

So that you will have no need to fear

When your time comes to turn and leave.

That the silent presence of your death

Would call your life to attention,

Wake you up to how scarce your time is

And the urgency to become free

And equal to the call of your destiny.

That you would gather yourself

And decide carefully

How you now can live

The life you would love

To look back on

From your deathbed.